THF TP Sets And Assassin Poulaines +2.

Rancor collar is kind of situational, if you know the enemy your going to be fighting will hit you accuratly and hit you hard then dont wear it cause unless its able to do 90% of your HP you will live and can heal from it. If it is going to be doing damage like 90% or more then sure wear something else or just find someone else to tank it for you. Rancor > love

but i thought Nefarious collar and Rancor mantle combo was better for TP anyway if you can get them.

In talking to Pancakesandsex (the poster on BG) and running the spreadsheet myself Assassin's Poulaines +2 wins, as a hume, if you put your merits in dex. However, with str merits I couldn't find a use for them outside of Evisceration. So I'll be sticking with Athos's Boots for haste.

Also worth noting that the dex merits had that effect because of the specific target used.

People need to stop this misinformation that AGI Daggers are "bad".
Do they offer as good DPS as STR? No. Were they made to? No.
However +11 AGI on TA and Exenterator is a hefty bonus but that's not the point of them, the +22 eva is. Seeing as most people who play Thf solo or tank...

And as for "most jobs do better than thf" blah blah... my THF stomps the face off any equally geared Nin in DMG and survivability and my Thf isn't even done yet.

I mean really, maybe in VW(which is 1 facet of the game, one that many people have zero interest in) but in Aby and even in normal content Thf offers a lot more than "just TH".

Bad players are bad.

total of 27~ eva on each dagger. also ppl are talking about dps so of course they will say that agi daggers are worse than a STR dagger... because of the "Context" in which they speak.

also thf doesnt have the same survivability as a nin...

We usually low man things so dont have the luxury of bards etc. However putting the AF2+2 feet through that spreadsheet showed that i get better TP results with 23% haste than 26% Haste. Is this accurate? has anyone with them parsed them?

I never imagined lower haste outperforming capped caste even with Haste samaba up as /DNC

IMO, Thief evasion is high enough that you don't need to sacrifice a weapon slot to maintain your survivability. But, I guess your THF be super 1337.

i like my eva daggers but seldom use them. I use them mainly if im holding a mob and kiting. Helps a lot. Other than that i dont really ever use em. As the above poster has said i tend to stick to Mandau/Twilight combo i have going on till i have my Twashtar in which case ill be DW'ing them. Eva daggers for me pretty much are situational but by any means they aint the worst and wont in any case stand up to STR Kila or other options.

That depends on your configuration.

As thf/nin, yeah, pure DD all the way (aside from certain situational fights where you'd be maxing evasion anyway). Survivability is all about getting shadows back up if needed, and curing is handled by someone else, or with bloody bolts or temp items.

As thf/war, you're obviously There To Do Damage, so it would be disengenuous to not use the best weapons available.

As thf/dnc, on the other hand, it gets a bit trickier. This is more likely to be a solo or duo option, and your survivability translates directly into how much TP you use to keep yourself alive, and TP used is damage lost.

Drain Samba II is 25 TP and lasts 90 seconds, and is equivalent to about a quarter of a weaponskill. Can expect to recover maybe 300-350 HP over its duration.

Curing Waltz III is 50 TP, and thus half a weaponskill. It gives about 330 HP healed. Samba is more efficient, but sacrifices being able to use Haste Samba (though you usually shouldn't use that solo, it provides net positive benefits if you're at least duo, or if you've built up excess TP anyway).

Exenterator for me varies between 1500 and 3000, depending on mob and whether I can stack with SA/TA. Overall average in my last Dynamis was about 2100, I think. Thus 25 TP can be considered the cost of 500 damage, and 50 TP the cost of 1000 damage.

So if using an agi dagger saves me from taking ~330 damage (about 3-4 hits, usually, vs DC Dynamis mobs), then it has also -gained- me ~1000 damage from not needing to Waltz, or 500 damage from not needing to Samba.

How much time does it take to build up a difference of 1000 damage between an agi dagger and something else? Well, a current config shows a difference in DPS of about 4-5 points (Kila+3 fire main, either another fire Kila or Triplus offhand, as a comparison), so that's 200 seconds, about double the Samba duration. A mob can generally get 50-60 attacks in in that time (assuming some DA chance as well; maybe less if debuffed/stunned, but also possibly more if you get links), so 3-4 hits would be 5%-8% evasion rate, which is only half of what you'd expect from ~27 evasion.

So if your evasion rate is 70% or less (possibly even 75% or less), the agi dagger can end up giving you more total damage than a pure DD dagger.

Amendment to the above: Obviously if most of the fight time is spent with the mob proc-stunned, the evasion doesn't really matter. It was based more on my solo work against DC mobs where there was a fair amount of time each fight that the mob was active.

This is my personal goal.

Hey Tikal, i was looking at a similar setup. I know incorporating the hands you chose keeps you at the 26% haste build, but i'm curious if the stats on the raider's armlets +2 despite the lack of haste might be better in DPS. Ill put it through Montenten's spreadsheet and see what i get and post here on this post. Will only change the hands around.

As for daggers ill probably be DW Twash, tho a coruscanti is extremely sexy :P

Edit:

Number crunching, the raider hands with 3% less haste still win by almost 1% (weapons being a Mandau and Twilight). This was tested with Fodder and Bukhis. Oh and i use Rancor Collar for neck being the other difference. Still find it weirds that less haste outperforms...

Rancor collar unless you are fighting something that does a throat stab move.

I'll sacrifice 2% crit for not putting myself in a compromising situation. I don't have the luxury of spellcast, windower macros, or macro space to waste on a swap-out. My palette is full and I like how it's set up.

Chaos, there's way too many factors you're either leaving out or not accounting for. What's the food choice in said situation? I'm assuming without cruor buffs and atmas, as well. More so, Twilight is going to affect the DPS of the offhand by a good degree being that the base DMG is 9 points lower than Coruscanti (Which is about a 25% loss in base DMG on the offhand.), which is in natural favor of Haste. What's the subjob?

My initial build was based off no food, no atmas etc, just raw self. All tests however were done with /dnc. I havent run amything with /nin or /war as of yet. I then tried with atmas, Apoc/RR/GH, then tried with Bison Steak, Yellow Curry Bun, Red Curry Bun, and the AF3+2 hands always came on top. No matter what i added as an external factor that combo came on top.

Of course im not gonna stand here and proclaim i know best, far from it, im just going by my observations, but that spreadsheet does work wonders, spent some time honing my gear setup yesterday for my MS build and ive seen huge increase so im grateful its there ^^;

After doing the same tests with /dnc, nin, war the following was the case

THF/DNC Raider +2 hands and AF2+2 Feet
THF/NIN Nomkahpa and AF2+2 Feet
THF/WAR Raider +2 and AF2+2 Feet.

So ya you was right. It is sub job dependant. Thanks for pointing that out :)

That is baffling to me Chaos. I don't know how to respond to it, but I can't say I believe it's accuracy.

Since you're rather vague as to what exactly you find hard to believe, I'll just address one of the primary points:



Main problem is that +DA for thf is not doing nearly as much as you might think.

TA: 10% (trait with merits) + 3% (AF3 head) + 3% (Epona) + 3% (Assassin+2) = 19%

DA: 5% (Brutal) + 3% (Atheling) + 2% (Twilight) + 3% (Epona) = 13%

TA has priority over DA, so chances of a TA proc is 19%, while chances of a DA proc are DA% * (1 - TA%) = 13% * (1 - 19%) = 13% * .81 = 10.53%

TA gives two extra hits per proc, DA gives one extra hit per proc. Total hits:

1 + 19% * 2 + 10.53% * 1 = 1.4853 swings per hand, on average

Now add 3% from the Nomkahpa hands:

DA = 16%

Total hits:

DA chance: 16% * 0.81 = 12.96%

1 + 19% * 2 + 12.96% * 1 = 1.5096


Increase in the average number of swings per hand: 1.5096 / 1.4853 = 1.64%


On the haste side, the 3% haste should bring you to the gear cap. Total haste without was 61 (head) + 51 (body) + 71 (waist) + 51 (legs) = 234/1024. Cap is 256/1024, so you're gaining 22/1024 haste.

Assuming you're getting Haste as well, total haste is increasing from 234+150 = 384/1024 to 256+150 = 406/1024.

The percent gain can be figured as (1-old) / (1-new), or (1 - 384/1024) / (1 - 406/1024) = 640/1024 / 618/1024 = 640/618 = 3.56%


Those combine, so total gain would be 1.0164 * 1.0356 = 1.0526, or +5.26%.


So, are you gaining at least 5.26% in damage from 3 str and 16 att? 17, maybe 18 att with rounding once str is converted, and 75% chance of +1 fStr.

+1 fStr is a gain of between 1/60 and 1/40, or between 1.67% and 2.5%.

The att gain (will use 17) as a percentage is equal to value of the attack divided by the defense of the mob. You can expect mob defense to range between 300 (extremely squishy) to 600 (extremely tough). 17/300 is 5.67%. 17/600 is 2.83%.


So worst case gain is high damage weapon + high existing fStr vs high def mob (not a likely combo, really), or 1.0167 * 1.0283 = 4.55%

Best case is low to moderate damage/fStr vs a low def mob (also not a likely combo), or 8.31%

Most likely going to get something between those two extremes, so something in the range of 5.4% to 7.4%.


Compared with the gain from the DA and haste (5.26%), it means you're most likely to gain more from AF3+2 gloves than you are from the Nomkahpa as long as you're gaining that point of fStr, which should happen more often than not.

And probably the reason the Nomkahpa won in Chaos's comparison with /nin is because the total str happened to be such that you didn't get that point of fStr, not because of anything inherent to the subjob itself.

Thanks for the Maths and workings Montenten. Appreciated :)

Against anything fodder, while using food, attack is going to be capped. Mithra THF/WAR with Mandau main and using Atheling has 570 base attack. Toss on red curry and it's 711. All this math tells me though is that AF2+2 feet aren't optimal against anything but fodder. The 3% TA pales in comparison to 3% Haste, for many reasons. Athos would probably be better in that slot against anything with higher defense.

How does Coruscanti compare to a STR Tok, then?

semi off topic but is it still unknown what the enhancement to assassin's charge augment does? Just got mine done a little bit ago and I've been testing them for about an hour and can't come up with anything.

So far I know its not:
extra swings (on main hand or off hand)
100% crit rate
100% accuracy
double or triple damage

Could possibly be:
extra triple attack damage, but I haven't noticed a significant increase
enhanced crit rate (again haven't noticed anything significant yet)

Bump, anyone work out some optimal gear sets for THF tp at 99 and ws sets for evis/exen?

According to a JP gaming magazine, the translation over at BG found here, it's 1% crit hit rate per merit.

Assassin's Vest was shown to give +1% Triple Attack per Ambush merit, but eh...

My personal set. Use Rancor Collar or Mantle at your own leisure and preference.

Well, obviously if you're capping attack then you will want to start changing out gear, since you're not getting any benefit from the attack. I didn't think that needed stating.

I'm not sure how you're reaching the conclusion that AF2+2 feet aren't optimal on higher tier targets, since the point you refute only has to do with AF3+2 hands. Against lower level targets, if you're capping attack you might as well swap AF3+2 hands to Nomkahpa. Against higher level targets, it's already presented that the AF3+2 hands will likely win even if you're not capping haste.

As for 3% TA vs 3% haste on the feet:

Value of 3% TA, is an increase in average hits per hand of 2 * 0.03 = 0.06. The relative value of that depends on total average hits per hand (and thus dependant on existing TA and DA).

Suppose we assume /war, Brutal, Atheling, Twilight and Epona's for DA: 23%
And we assume trait, merits, Epona's, AF3+2 head and Triplus for TA: 19%

Average number of swings per hand would be 1 + 2 * (0.19) + 1 * (0.23 * (1 - 0.19)) = 1.5663

Relative increase in number of hits (not counting +TA damage) would be (1.5663+0.06) / 1.5663 = 1.0383, or +3.83%

Triplus (estimated as +3%) and Relic+2 (tested as +2%) modify the effective damage done, though.

At 19% TA rate with Triplus, 0.57 hits out of 1.5663 will be TAs, and gain an additional 0.0171 effective hits of damage (melee damage only), for a total of 1.5834.
At 22% TA rate with Triplus + AF2+2, 0.66 hits out of 1.6263 will be TAs, and gain an additional 0.033 effective hits of damgae (melee only), for a total of 1.6593.

Melee damage thus increases by 1.6593 / 1.5834 = +4.79%

Since melee damage is only about 1/3 of all damage, I'll use 1/3 of the difference between those two values later on. First, comparison using the +TA rate only.


Total haste with AF3+2 head/body/legs + Twilight: 234/1024
Gain from any haste on feet: 256 - 234 = 22/1024, 2.15%

Value of a given amount of additional haste is (1 - current haste) / ((1 - current haste) - additional haste)

h == 1 - current haste

So at what amount of current haste is 2.15% additional haste worth at least 3.83% damage?

h / (h - 0.0215) = 1 + 0.0383
h = (h - 0.0215) * (1 + 0.0383)
h = h + 0.0383h - 0.0215 - 0.00082345
0.0383h = 0.0215 + 0.00082345
0.0383h = 0.0215 + 0.00082345
h = 0.02232345 / 0.0383
h = 0.583

So at haste values of over 41.7%, the haste feet have a chance to start outdoing the AF2+2 feet. However that doesn't account for the +TA damage.


Now, the additional melee damage. 4.79 - 3.83 = 0.96 / 3 = 0.32%

Add that to the 3.83% gained from just +TA and the total is 4.15%

Run through the eqivalency math again:

h / (h - 0.0215) = 1 + 0.0415
h = (h - 0.0215) * (1 + 0.0415)
h = h + 0.0415h - 0.0215 - 0.00089225
0.0415h = 0.0215 + 0.00089225
0.0415h = 0.0215 + 0.00089225
h = 0.02239225 / 0.0415
h = 0.540

So at haste values of at least 46% haste shoes start doing better than the AF2+2 feet.


Note that 46% is when current haste is using the 23% gear haste value, so it is an additional 23% haste on top of gear haste. That requires the Haste spell plus either a dnc main's Haste Samba, or Marches, for haste shoes to be the better option.

In the case that the haste shoes offer additional benefits aside from the haste itself (eg: Savateur's Gaiters, Setanta's Ledelsens, dex that affects crit rate, etc), you can probably assume that they're worth using if you're at least getting Hasted.

Does that "46% Haste" number take into account our Natural Dual Wield III or is that completely irrelevant?

Just curious.

DW wouldn't be relevant to those calculations. Going from 0% to 5% haste or 50% to 55% haste has the same effect regardless of how much DW you have (unless you hit the overall delay cap).

I fail to see when thf needs eva in gear, no to mention on wpn.

How about Calmecac Trousers?